. >> including president obama actually making his appeal to business leaders on his tax plan. he's now reaching out following a very tough election campaign. >> and overseas, protests get violent in egypt where the once stable nation appears to be on the verge of crisis. first, let's get to the news live at 5:30 here at 30 rock in new york city. we begin with 25 days to go until the year end fiscal cliff deadline for the first time in days president obama and speaker boehner spoke on the phone yesterday. both men agreeing not to publicly characterize how the conversation went. but the stalemate in negotiations entered bold new territory yesterday with treasury secretary tim geithner suggesting the white house is ready to go off the cliff if republicans refuse to raise taxes on the top 2%. >> if republicans do not agree to that, is the administration prepared to go over the fiscal cliff? >> absolutely. again, there's no prospect to an agreement that doesn't involve those rates going up on the top 2% of the wealthiest members. only 2%. the size of the problem in some sense is so